Gary Kirsten will bring a calm head to the table: Dinesh Karthik

Dinesh Karthik, who was the second-costliest buy at Rs 12.5 crore in the IPL auction at Bangalore earlier this week, is keen to play under Delhi Daredevils coach Gary Kirsten in season 7 of the T20 tournament starting April 9.

“Everybody knows him as a wonderful human being and his track record has been phenomenal. It is going to be wonderful to be working with a person like him and you require a calm head in T20 and he will definitely bring that to the table,” Karthik told reporters here about ex-India coach Kirsten.

Only Yuvraj Singh, who was bought for Rs 14 crore by Royal Challengers, fetched higher price than Karthik at the two-day auction held on February 12 and 13.

Karthik, who had played for Delhi Daredevils for a couple of seasons before he shifted to Mumbai Indians till last season, said the DD squad is a balanced one without many big names in it.

“I think it is a very balanced squad. It is one of those squads where you don’t have huge names, but I think we have the potential to win games of cricket. But T20 is such a format. It is not about how strong a team is, but at that given day who plays the best,” said the Tamil Nadu wicket keeper-batsman who will lead India Cements in the BCCI Corporate Trophy tournament starting on Sunday.

Asked whether former England star Kevin Pietersen, who has expressed his desire to lead the Daredevils, should be made the captain or should he be named as the leader, Karthik said the decision lies with the team management.

“It is not about whether I am good enough or Kevin Pietersen is good enough. It is about what Gary Kirsten and the entire coaching unit thinks. What they feel is the best suited for the team.

“I think we should leave the option to them and whatever they decide, it will be a good decision because they all have previous experiences as support staff.”

The 28-year old, who has even opened the batting on occasions in Tests, was not retained by holders Mumbai Indians, and said the decision was understandable as only five could be retained as per the IPL rules.

“If you are a championship winning team, you always have about 7-8 players who have the chances of being retained. The rules are such that you can retain only five. They took their option and it is totally upto them and I am totally with them on that,” said Karthik.

“Given an opportunity the playing 11 which had played the final would have been retained. Why would they let go a player like Mitchell Johnson (of Australia). That is part of the IPL, that is part of the player’s auction. continued…